


Right Person, Wrong Time

by thanhbear



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9062452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thanhbear/pseuds/thanhbear
Summary: un·re·quit·edˌənrəˈkwīdəd/adjective.of a feeling, especially love. not returned or rewarded.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucitae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucitae/gifts).



> For my dearest Kuro who asked for Chansoo and Hanahaki pain. As you can tell, nothing is proofread and this fic does end in with a cliffhanger more or less–– Which only makes the closing line even more ironic. I hope you will enjoy this

There are only so many times Chanyeol can pull the “It's just shredded lettuce” excuse around people. To everybody who almost caught on, he’s recited this line about five times (each). The petals come more often than he expects, but they seem to correlate with whenever he catches _those_ annoying feelings. The non-scientific conjectures have stacked up recently since he has no clue in regards to what he’s dealing with. School curriculums already fails in fulfilling their duties to teach about sex-ed. Small time illnesses like this usually get just one throwaway line in a science book and that’s the end of that.

So naturally he has to turn to the one teacher who only occasionally fails him: Naver.

His search history is a mess in no time.

_“Home treatments for Hanahaki”_  
_“Hypnosis to get rid of Hanahaki”_  
_“Is Hanahaki contagious?”_  


For each (and every) failed search request, he zips up the collar of his jacket further and further. By the end, the hem sits just below his eyes and he thinks to himself, “This isn’t bad.” At least his mouth is covered so even when he coughs something up nobody can see. Although, as thick as his collar is he can’t muffle his coughs into silence. His friends are all fellow music and performance majors so he knows their ears work fine. He could possibly hold the petals in his mouth until people aren’t looking and he’ll spit them out somewhere– _No, that’s stupid._

Chanyeol leans back in his chair with his hands covering his face. The palms of his hands rub deeply into his eyes. 40% of people are genetically predisposed for Hanahaki, as told by Naver, and he happens to be part of that unfortunate gene pool. His hands itch to search up death rate but he doesn't dare to follow through. The prices he saw earlier for the surgery has him dizzy already. 40% predisposition comes at the price of 100% complication and inconvenience. It's his luck that his next inconvenience comes in the form of a rumbling stomach and two roommates in the kitchen. 

\---

Chanyeol trudges out of his room, jacket collar down and all. Yixing’s in the kitchen cooking tonight, but that also means that Baekhyun’s also in the kitchen bothering Yixing. When the housing services screwed up and gave the third room to study abroad student instead of Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s mutual friend, he didn’t think Baekhyun would latch onto the stranger. Then again, the word stranger means nothing to Baekhyun who can get along with any and everybody if he tries hard enough. 

“Oh, ugh. God,” Chanyeol lifted his hands up to deflect the image of Baekhyun feeding Yixing away from his eyes. When the housing services screwed up, he definitely didn’t think Baekhyun would end up dating the study abroad student either. “I’ve lost my appetite. Thanks,” he announced.

“Says the guy who’s already snacking before dinner. You did this to yourself.” Baekhyun points his wooden spoon accusingly at Chanyeol. 

“I’m not snacking. It’s just gum,” Chanyeol fibs while chewing on a petal. Among his many searches, he finally pinpointed the flower as a carnation, which naturally lead to the next inquiry: “Are Carnations poisonous to humans?” He figures the best way to hide the petals is in his gut. It’s a guaranteed one trip ticket from his throat to the toilet, and nobody will be the wiser. 

Baekhyun’s nose scrunches. “From lettuce to gum. Not much of an upgrade in terms of healthy dieting if you ask me. You still need to eat actual meals.”

“Yes, Chanyeol. You have to look after your health,” Yixing chimes in. Apparently all it takes is a few words from Yixing and all the wrinkles around Baekhyun’s frown melts away. Fond gazes are exchanged between them. These domestic displays of affection make Chanyeol feel a little queasy. The couple look at each other as if the world around them stopped, but Chanyeol can feel the earth’s rotations within his stomach. 

Something climbs up the walls of his throat. Chanyeol thinks he’s puking at first but then remembers. The damn thing is like the hiccups. Just when it seems like it's gone, it rears its head again. His throat clenches up as a reflex, choking on thin petals in the back of his mouth. He hates that he's creating such a scene that Yixing and Baekhyun have to rush to his side. He hates this fact as much as he hates his mind for continuing to think of being disgustingly intimate with someone while he's on the brink of death.

Yixing’s arms wrap around Chanyeol and his hands meet just over Chanyeol’s diaphragm. Chanyeol pats Yixing’s hand then waves his hand in the air to prevent Yixing from following through with the Heimlich. The heroic act is greatly appreciated, but Chanyeol isn’t keen on spelling out his crush for them in flower petals on the floor. 

“I’m fine,” he wheezes. The words barely come through clearly past the strain of him holding back the coughs. He makes it a priority to not open his mouth too widely as he speaks, so nobody can see the flower garden inside his mouth. Chewing this much at once proves to be a challenge. The bitter taste of the flowers levels up from just a hint to a louder presence. 

“You nearly choked on that gum and you’re still chewing it? Are you trying to die?” Baekhyun’s tone is annoying. More accurately, the situation is annoying. If Baekhyun knew the trials and tribulations Chanyeol has to go through, he’d feel really dumb for talking down to Chanyeol like that. If Baekhyun and Yixing really knew they might even congratulate him for playing it off so well. 

“If you die, I will turn in your project to Professor Lee for you,” Yixing adds. 

At the mention of school Chanyeol’s heart seizes up. His hand clutches at his chest. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” 

Yixing runs a nervous hand through his hair as he murmurs a soft apology for his joke. 

“Actually speaking of that… How far along are you two with your project?” Two seconds later and Chanyeol already regrets asking. Anything they have compared to him having a blank project file is bound to make him feel depressed all over again. 

Baekhyun hums before turning to Yixing. “Well you showed me a couple of demos on your usb, and I like a lot of them. We just need to talk more about what direction we wanna go in before choosing—”

“So nothing yet,” Chanyeol interjects, sounding a little too satisfied, and leans over the counter. 

“We’re getting there. What about you? Did you already, uh…” Yixing struggles to find a polite way to finish the question Chanyeol already knows he wants to ask. Even his dimple looks like it’s in distress.

“I haven't yet. I texted Sehun but he's working with Jongin. I asked him if he knew anybody is looking for a partner. His smart ass just named…” Chanyeol gestures with his hand to fill the blank.

Both Baekhyun and Yixing “ _ahh_ ” in return and nod their heads. 

Whatever they have on the stove bubbles and steals their attention away. The awkwardness lingers around the room but none of them try to touch on the topic again. Chanyeol feels the petals coming again so he excuses himself to retreat back into the safety of his room.

\---

Spending time outside his room is now synonymous with risking the chance of being caught in the act of coughing up a bouquet. Thankfully since Chanyeol’s upper division musical production professor gave them time to work on their end of the year projects, they don’t actually have to attend class unless they need the space to meet up. Chanyeol counts his blessings that he doesn’t have to be in that room of thirty-something students and pretend he’s not dying in his seat. 

Of course now he gets to pretend he’s not dying in the computer lab in the library, but this is an improvement. This is a fresh pool of students who he’s either never met, or never going to see again. The prospects are bright. --Or they would be if he didn’t forget his student ID card at home. He doesn’t have a laptop to tote around on campus, so these labs are his only hope of working thing stuff when he’s not home.

“Um, this is embarrassing.” He digs into one pocket after another, and then digs back through his wallet for a round two just in case. “Can I just give you my name and ID number?”

The desk clerk looks unfazed. Chanyeol is probably not the first forgetful student to enter these premises and try to check out a computer without their card.

“My name is Park. Chan. Yeol. ID number is 6192102--” 

The rough screech of metal against flooring steals his attention away from his task. The sound is accompanied by a flurry of books slamming into one another as they’re shoved into a backpack.

“7,” Chanyeol finishes reciting the number quickly, so that he can satisfy his curiosity and see where that ruckus is coming from. His head turns but whips back around immediately. The campus is full of libraries and somehow they both managed to pick the same one. The fact that class was cancelled is supposed to lower the chances of Chanyeol running into him, but fate evokes twisted things to happen for a laugh. 

His lips press firmly together to form a barricade as soon as he feels it. The petals are trickling through. It’s become like clockwork now. He hunches over the front desk with a tightly balled up fist pressed to his mouth. His entire body is shaking from how hard he’s suppressing his coughs. Each cough is like the truth banging at his chest, begging to be released.

“Hey, man. You all good there?” The clerk asks him.

He looks up. Through the tears that began to well up, he catches a soft picture of Kyungsoo making haste to get out of the lab. The guy doesn’t even spare him a single glance. His backpack is half zipped with his papers and journals all poking out of the opening. Chanyeol feels like the artist behind that picture since he knows he’s directly at fault. Accountability is his to claim, and he stomachs it all along with the chewed up petals.

\---

The ID card greets him from the kitchen counter. Strange, he doesn’t remember leaving it there.

“Did you find this, _hyung_?” He holds the card up between his index and middle fingers to Yixing.

Yixing stops in the middle of washing a dish to lean in and see what Chanyeol’s holding. “Oh,” he pulls back. “It was dropped off.”

“Baekhyun had it?”

Yixing turns the water on higher. The rush of the water overlaps the clinking of glass cups and dishes. 

“Was it Baekhyun?” He repeats himself.

A freshly washed bowl and a spoon later, Yixing clears his throat. “Kyungsoo texted me and said he’d drop it off at the main office on the ground floor.”

The utterance of that name makes every muscle in Chanyeol’s body tense up. His hand curls around the card, and his throat clenches but he hides all signs of alarm under a thin smile. “Did he say anything else to you?”

“No… And he was already gone when I got there.”

Nodding and smiling seems safe so that’s what Chanyeol sticks to. He continues to nod and smile at the new information even if it’s lacking. An edge of the card sinks into his trembling palm. The petals are coming again but Chanyeol feels like he’s going to throw up his entire stomach. 

Two brief interactions in one day. He thought their paths will never cross again, though he can hardly say that their paths actually crossed today. They brushed by each other and almost intersected. Chanyeol now realizes that _almost_ is a word that makes the flowers bloom more than _never again_.

\---

Usually Chanyeol keeps his music playing at a certain audio level. It’s a delicate balance between having the sound loud enough to cover up his coughs, but not loud enough to bother his suitemates. The particular song he’s playing, though, requires a level that’s only audible for himself.

He was trying to delete old unfinished project files when he stumbled onto this song. He still remembers when he recorded it in his studio months ago. The word studio is used loosely since they all take place in his bedroom. Most days where the studio is in use, it’s mostly him messing around on his keyboard. On rarer days, like when he recorded this song, he'd have a guest sit beside him at his desk. 

Kyungsoo’s voice comes through the MS16 speakers, as clear as the day they recorded. Chanyeol still hasn't altered the vocal track in any way. The clarity and fullness of the voice are both natural, untouched by compressions and plugins. 

The embellishments Kyungsoo chose to add in, every run and every belt, had a way of speaking to Chanyeol. They told him how to keep up with the singer as he played the accompaniment on the guitar. Whenever he played for Kyungsoo, it felt as though he understood the songs on a different level. The way Kyungsoo sang reflected how he interpreted the songs, and when he and Chanyeol harmonized they were speaking the same language. 

Chanyeol closes his eyes and he can almost pretend that Kyungsoo is in the room with him again. His chest aches from coughing so much. He knows he’s just torturing himself when he should be keeping his mind on something else, but he lets the song play to the end. 

“ _If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go…_ ”

His eyes open, hoping to see Kyungsoo’s smiling face at him again after he delivered the closing lyric. There’s no one in his dimly lit room but himself. 

“ _Holy crap. That was amazing, Soo._ ” Chanyeol’s own voice plays on the file since he never went back to edit it.  
“ _Really?_ ”  
“ _I don’t even remember playing through the bridge. I feel like the holy music ghost was in me or something._ ”  
Kyungsoo’s laugh broke up into a series of coughs into the mic. “ _Sorry. Excuse m–_ ” 

The door slammed shut and the file playback ends there.

\---

Chanyeol wakes up to the knocking at his bedroom door. It goes on for about ten minutes or thirty. His sense of time is crap when he’s teetering on the edge of being asleep and awake. Instead of giving any indication that he woke up, he snuggles in further into his pillow and mattress under his blanket. 

“Park Chanyeol!” Baekhyun shouts through the door. 

_Park Chanyeol is asleep._

“Park Chanyeol!”

_Park Chanyeol is not responding._

The door opens and Chanyeol quickly pulls the covers over his head. The barrier he made to keep Baekhyun away is not doing its job. His friend sits on the edge of his bed anyway.

“Yeah, I ate your cupcake,” Chanyeol mumbles sleepily. “But Yixing offered to take the blame.”

Baekhyun nudges him. “I’m not here to talk about that.”

Funny, because Chanyeol isn’t here to talk period. Judging by Baekhyun’s softened tone though, it sounds like he has something serious to discuss. Chanyeol lowers his blanket and tucks it under his chin. 

“What’s up?” He asks sounding reluctant. 

“You know how I always remind you to double bag your trash because you like to cram your trash in?” 

Chanyeol’s stare sharpens into a frustrated expression. “Yeah,” he answers curtly.

Baekhyun exhales. “Well you obviously didn’t do that so the bag ripped, and… I saw it.”

Even though Chanyeol has no idea what Baekhyun is referring to, he feels the weight of the anticipation anchoring in his chest. “What are you talking about…?”

“The flower petals.”

_Fuck._

It isn’t too late to pull the covers over his head again, Chanyeol reasons, but he doesn’t move. For the next minute or two, he sits eerily still and Baekhyun follows suit. There are a lot of things he doesn’t want to admit; the fact that he has a crush on Kyungsoo ranks first, and the fact that Baekhyun was right about using two trash bags ranks second. 

The first move is made by Baekhyun. He shifts around to get a better look at Chanyeol. “So that’s why you’ve been acting so strangely lately?”

Chanyeol nods.

“Are you alright?”

Chanyeol shakes his head.

Baekhyun puts a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder sympathetically. “It’s probably been hard on you. Can I ask who it is?”

Another head shake. 

“Is it Yixing?” Baekhyun asks almost immediately.

Chanyeol scowls and jerks away from Baekhyun’s hand. “No. –And no it’s not you either,” he rushes to fit that second part in when he saw Baekhyun’s eyes grow. 

“Does the person know?”

It’s Chanyeol’s turn for his eyes to grow. Kyungsoo used to twist his ear and bend his arm back, and that was when they were on good terms. He suppresses the first few coughs but remembers that Baekhyun is in on his secret now. The following coughs come out full force and coughing has never felt so freeing. He forms an X with his arms to answer Baekhyun’s question as he catches his breath.

“It’ll pass,” he breathes roughly. “I got it handled.”

Baekhyun shoots him a doubtful look. “That’s what Kyungsoo said too.”

Leave it to Baekhyun to unintentionally hit him where it hurts the most. Leaning over, he grabs the wastebasket at the side of his bed and hacks up even more petals into it.

Baekhyun springs up to run out. Chanyeol hears clinking of glass and the faucet running shortly after. He’s glad Baekhyun left to get that glass of water for him. Each petal always feels inexplicably dry they come up. They rub against his throat like sandpaper at times. He’s gotten used to their bitter taste but not to how they threaten to steal his livelihood away every time they appear. 

He downs the water as soon as Baekhyun hands off the glass to him. Every last drop is guzzled down and his situation seems to be stable again even after a hiccup or two. 

Exhaustion sets in and he flops back onto his bed. 

“I’ll get you more water,” Baekhyun says softly. “I’ll make rice porridge for you tonight. My grandmother says it’s good for this sickness.”

“Thanks, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol’s voice has a rasp to it. Both his throat and chest feel sore.

“I hope you get closure soon,” the other adds while standing at the doorway. 

At this point, closure sounds like something out of a myth.


End file.
